Sunday, February 15, 2015

Enjoying Windows 10 for your phone, well the fun would most likely end if you're just trying out the update. As I mentioned in our hands on with the preview build of Windows 10, the software is just not ready for daily use and in most cases is just unbearable compared to the Windows Phone we know and love. If you followed our guide to installing the Windows 10 for phones preview, this is like the continuation of that. Microsoft was kind enough to allow users to try out unfinished software and with that they are also providing a program to restore your phone back to it's original state.

During the January event early last month, Microsoft showed off new inclusions to the window 10 family. Apart from unveiling the futuristic HoloLens headset, they also showed off for the very first time a version of Windows 10 made for small tablets and phones. Windows 10 for phones (or whatever it ends up being called) was destine to replace the Windows Phone name later this year. Today, Microsoft has released the first technical preview for existing Windows Phone device.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The day has come again, it was about 3 years ago this day that I started my tech blogging journey. Since then I have learnt a lot of new things about this industry as well as met some interesting people. Year after year during this very day I usually talk about the happenings of the past year and a short post mortem of the outgoing year. But this year I really have nothing much to say about the past year, throughout the years we have been dropping the amount of posts being published and last year we only posted 20 articles compared to over 800 in the first year. That is a major difference in raw numbers and its mainly due to the focus shift from writing news articles to exclusively writing independently opinionated articles. The strategy so far has been solid as the numbers/readers are promising enough to continue on.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Last year, Microsoft released a Technical Preview for Windows 10 which allowed users to try the unfinished build(s) and earlier this week the story continues. The 2 hour long keynote focused on several services powered by Windows 10 and frankly speaking there was a lot of information being pushed out during the 2 hour long keynote. It took me some time to digest all of it. During the keynote, Microsoft showed off some new things like Windows 10 for phones, XBOX streaming for PCs and the unexpected HoloLens which intros holgrams to the world.

In this article i am not going to focus too much on what Microsoft showed off, rather i am going to brief you on some of the facts about windows 10 that you need to know. These facts will not only be for windows 10 for the desktop, the OS as a whole is considered.

Monday, January 19, 2015

In a few days time, Microsoft will be showcasing the future of Windows to the world. After previewing Windows 10 last fall, it looks like Microsoft is finally going to get things right this time. The technical preview released was indeed an uncomplete OS and the features will not be limited to what Microsoft employees could think of. Instead they asked users for their feedback to request what they actually want in the next version of windows. The event will be mainly focusing on the desktop side of things but they might squeeze in some things about windows 10 for phone or whatever they end up calling it. Well here are some things which I would definitely like to see on the final version of windows 10

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Well, hey we're back. For the past few months or maybe for the last year this blog felt like it was being discontinued. The actual fact that in 2014 was busy year for me and yes laziness was also part of the problem. I entered college in January last year and since then i've been putting this blog on the sideline and focusing more towards my studies. But after about a year of dealing primarily with my college coursework and exams, i think that it's finally time for me to address this blog and continue to do what i like which is writing about tech. This post was actually going to be named an announcement but then i thought why not make it an update article because it's been quite popular in the Youtube world where the host talks about the current status of the channel and adds in some upcoming plans. For 2015, i am planning to change things around.

Friday, October 17, 2014

When you talk about Microsoft, it's most likely about Windows or Office. The Office brand is synonymous with the Microsoft brand and when it comes to word processing and spreadsheets, Microsoft Office is still ruling the desktops. In today's world where users try to get the most out of their software, Microsoft seems to be losing it everywhere except on the desktop. That however, brought upon Office Online which is probably the most versatile Microsoft product yet. All you need is just an internet connection paired up with a modern browser and you're on your way to becoming a productive person. Compared to Google Docs, Office Online is a lot more graphical and retains the iconic office ribbon which makes doing work feel right at home. Currently there are a couple of Office applications available on Office Online and last week, Microsoft showed off the latest edition to the family. They call it Office Sway and it's ready to redefine how we share and express our thoughts.

Monday, October 13, 2014

It's no secret that Windows 8 was a complete flop. From market share to feedback from end users, the response has been pretty bad. The successor to Windows 7 introduced the Metro UI (now called Modern UI) to the desktop which has previously been introduced with Windows Phone 7. With this new version, Microsoft decided to kill the start menu which was introduced back in the 90's on Windows 95. The iconic menu system was replaced with a touch centric start screen which was filled with live tiles. Month's after Windows 8 was released, Microsoft realized where they got it wrong and started to fix things up by introducing back the start button and an option to boot straight into the desktop. Despite that, the reception was still not there because of the supposedly high learning curve windows 8 imposes; from the windows store apps to the hidden charms bar, users were scratching their head. I can relate to this because when I first used windows 8 I didn't even know how to shut down the PC without punching in ALT + F4. Two years into the introduction of Windows 8, someone in Microsoft decided that this has to stop and last week, Microsoft revealed their master plan for the future of windows. They're calling it Windows 10 and for obvious reasons, the new operating system was such a leap ahead that they're skipping a number. In actual fact, they wanted to call it Windows One which would play nicely with the XBOX One and OneDrive name but Windows One has already been done 30 years ago.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

The Xperia Zx lineup of devices have always received positive rating from both reviewers and consumers. It's industrial boxed up design and round aluminum power button has since then become a hallmark design of Sony's flagship devices. At IFA last week, Sony has did it again, by announcing yet another flagship smartphone this year. Unlike Samsung which does announce flagship device every 6 months, Samsung's flagship actually is catered for two markets but sony is beginning to act silly. with the Xperia Z3, they officially have 3 incremental versions of the same phone with near identical hardware and slight tweaks to the software.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

The Galaxy Note lineup stretches back to IFA 2011 and since then Samsung have pioneered the phablet market and brands like LG, Sony and even Apple have been busy replicating the big screens on their devices but failed to create a success mainly because they don't have Samsung's magical addition to the Galaxy Note which is the S Pen. For the past three years Samsung has been changing the way how the Galaxy Note looks like and last year’s Galaxy Note 3 design was probably the most sophisticated one yet. Unlike Galaxy S devices, the Galaxy Note lineup has often been regarded as Samsung's premium offering of the year. Being announced months after the flagship Galaxy S series, Samsung will have time to optimize the features that they implemented earlier and take a pick at which is better.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Earlier today Microsoft concluded their #morelumia event at IFA 2014 in Berlin. The event showcased a lot of Nokia’s innovation and continuous effort in the budget market as well as bringing down features from top of the line Lumia devices to the mid range market. This year i am pretty busy with classes and currently i’m busy completing my Samsung and Sony wrapup articles and they will be posted up before the weekend starts. I’ll be taking the weekend to complete the #morelumia article, so today i decided to try out something new which is a picture article (quite popular with bigger site, so i’ll try it out here today). This article is quite simple, a lot of big images and minimal amount of word, as the saying goes a picture paints a thousand words. Enjoy!

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Europe’s biggest trade show is about to start but the pre-events are underway. First in line is Asus, during their event tday they unveiled a range of devices from affordable windows 8.1 laptops all the way to premium android tablets powered by 64-bit Intel atom processors. Mr Eric Chen, Asus Corporate Vice President started off by highlighting their market grasp at transforming mobile computing and said that their range of Zenfone android smartphones are selling at a rate of 1 million units per month.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Last week Microsoft announced the Windows Phone 8.1 update 1 (GDR1) for Windows Phone devices and mentioned that the developers preview will be coming out the following week. Well, here we are a little over a week later, the update actually started rolling out on Monday and yesterday i decided to get the new update loaded onto my Lumia 630. What i found out is that the installation process is really simple and updating the device required no physical connection with the computer, just like a OTA update. Unlike on android, you can’t just flash a ROM onto a windows phone device, it just doesn’t work that way. In this simple how-to, i’ll guide you on installing the windows phone 8.1 developers preview onto your windows phone device.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Three years ago Stephen Elop, former Microsoft Executive and current Nokia CEO (in 2011) inked a deal between Microsoft and Nokia to focus on creating Windows Phone devices. Since then a lot of things changed and Nokia effectively became the savior for windows phone with a near total grasp in the windows phone market share, its like they are the operating system. Late last year Microsoft finally announced that they will be purchasing Nokia’s mobile division for $7 billion, the deal wasn’t much a surprise given the relationship between the two in the past years. Just before closing the deal, Stephen Elop took the stage at BUILD 2014 to unveil the first Windows Phone 8.1 device(s), the Lumia 930 and Lumia 630. These two devices are probably the very first look at how Microsoft plans to overhaul Nokia’s smartphones. In this review i’ll be specifically talking about the Lumia 630 and more specific, the dual SIM variant. As i said during my article about the Lumia 630 a few weeks back, the Lumia 630 really is full of firsts for a Windows Phone device. For this review’ i’ll first divulge more about that as we progress into this review.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

During Microsoft’s BUILD developers conference this year, they unveiled the latest version of their mobile operating system; Windows Phone 8.1. Although it wasn’t such a radical redefinition like from WP7 to WP8, it did bring in the features which has been long wanted by windows phone users/fanatics. Cortana and Action Center was probably the most eye catching feature in this new version of Windows Phone but there was another feature which Joe talked about and that was the animated/live lock screens which are similar to custom lock screens on android. This new feature is enabled by the new API introduced during BUILD 2014 and this app in particular is the first of its kind. Made by Microsoft, this should give users a taste of what to expect in the near future when other devs start cracking their head to make more bold designs.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

When google overhauled the Android design philosophy in Ice Cream Sandwich, they introduced a whole theme called holo. Android versions after that like Jellybean continued to use the holo theme but when Kitkat was revealed last year, the holo theme hasn’t been much of a design highlight. Instead a more brighter and minimalistic design status was showcased in Android 4.4 Kitkat. At Google IO this year, Matias Duarte the man behind the design overhaul in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich introduces a new design language called material design alongside the Android L release (developer preview). This time around the design overhaul not only affects android, other google products like android wear and android tv are also being themed under this new design language.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Earlier this week, Apple held their 25th developers conference and their first media event of the year. This year Apple’s focus has been shifted towards developers rather than the media because this is a developers conference. As expected, Tim Cook did not unveil any new hardware but he was following the tradition of introducing the world to new versions of their software for both mac and iOS. The new iteration of Apple’s Mac operating system is called OSX 10.10 Yosemite and for iOS its just following the numbering scheme, iOS 8. Both of them have a bevy of new features with them and visually there isn’t much radical change on both Mac or iOS. But instead there is a lot more attention paid to the miniscule details as well as behind the scenes.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

2 years ago, i downloaded the foursquare app from the ovi store (AKA nokia store) and since then i have been checking in to everywhere i go. In short, foursquare has changed my life (literally), it has been an amazing journey so far. Earlier this month, the folks over at The Verge (most awesome site ever!) posted an exclusive interview with the Foursquare team about swarm. Apparently foursquare thinks that earning points and gaining mayorships is becoming stale and I have to agree with that. Other than the special occasions where I try to outpace somebody on foursquare, most of the time I really don’t care much about the points. On Friday, the hounds were released and Swarm landed on the App Store and Google Play Store (coming to the Windows Phone store in Summer).

Sunday, April 13, 2014

In the 21st century smartphones are basically taking over the world by storm and Android in particular is powering more than 80% of the smartphones worldwide. One of the current trends which Google and even Microsoft is heavily pushing out now is cloud storage. These days individuals and even big companies are beginning to store their data in the cloud because it’s simply more easier and with the internet being a norm everywhere, data can virtually be accessed anywhere. In today’s article, Dan Radak will be talking all about android in the cloud with enterprise users in mind.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Earlier today, Nokia announced two new Lumia devices at Microsoft's Build 2014 keynote. Both of the new devices (Lumia 930 and Lumia 630/635) will be the first handsets to run Windows Phone 8.1 out of the box and the Lumia 630/635 is the first windows phone device to utilize on screen buttons and it also come without a camera shutter button. The Lumia 630 comes in single and dual SIM flavours which can support 2G/3G networks.